John Pluecker

2016 — Short-Form Writing

Short-Form Writing

John Pluecker’s work is informed by experimental poetics, radical aesthetics and cross border cultural production, combining an interest in visual arts, performance and literary culture, with a commitment to the exploration of the intersections between the various fields. He plans to conduct an investigation into contemporary artistic practices in Texas and the Mexican states that border it: Tamaulipas, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Chihuahua. His writing will focus on work by artists in these areas who are dealing with on-going violence, as well as on historical and contemporary connections and divisions between these territories. He is interested in how artists on both sides of the border deal with extra-state and state violence in their work, particularly when there are specific personal connections to that violence, for example in the work of Janet Fanjón or Rigoberto González.

Pluecker is a writer, translator and co-founder of the language justice and literary experimentation collaborative Antena. His arts writing has appeared in journals in the U.S. and Mexico, including Artforum, Arts + Culture Texas, Voices of Mexico, Pastelegram, Temporary Arts Review, Revista Animal, HTMLGiant, Free Press Houston, Cite Magazine and BOMB, among others. Through his work with Antena, Pluecker has carried out large-scale installations in museums and non-profit art spaces, including Project Row Houses, Blaffer Museum of Art, and the Hammer Museum.